Bestoutwest":3cvxefqc said:bball":3cvxefqc said:Best,
There is a tremendous difference between petty medical visits and gross abuse of the healthcare system..and I know for a fact you know what I am speaking about.
Also, I think that's what the medical community ONCE stood for. Plenty of small town hospitals and physicians have closed up shop and shut it down across the nation because they couldn't make it financially. Harsh reality today is if too few are paying, you're not keeping the doors open.
I enjoy listening to folks complain about our poor, overpriced healthcare and believe the physicians and staff are getting filthy rich. Imagine how it will be when even more local hospitals, physicians and medical services are not available. It is happening daily. Like it or not, healthcare is run like a business nowadays. The alternative is not very optimistic.
I am extremely well versed in petty medical visits. The exam I did last week on a patient that had abdominal pain for 1 hr that subsided. A mother that brought the kids in before going on vacation b/c one had been sick. I could go on and on. However, the problem with running credit and determining health care outcomes based on that will cause for delays in necessary care. Because it doesn't just stop at the Urgent Care, it moves on to all aspects of the medical world. Would we not allow people into the trauma bay until their credit has been run? Is the OR the line they shall not cross until credit is secured? Should your grandfather be denied cardiac care b/c he doesn't have the $10K for what Medicare doesn't cover? Do you want this to happen to your kids, wife or yourself? Health care is being run as a business, and it's getting ugly. Costs are soaring, and it's massively detrimental for society.
You are zeroing in on the target now. Many facilities demand payment/payment plan for a non life threatening procedure or diagnostic exam prior to that procedure or exam. Can't pay? You don't receive that procedure or diagnostic. Life threatening, trauma, or true emergent issues are dealt with on the spot, as it should be. As far as credit checks go, that can be done in minutes, if not faster. It's a very real challenge to educate some people in society about the difference between an Emergency room(and it's actual purpose) and a walk in clinic, their PCP(if they bothered to get one), and going to the local drugstore for Tylenol or Motrin.
Heres another difference; purely anecdotal: my oldest daughter is a living miracle thanks to the men and women who work at Texas Children's Hospital. She was given less than a 10% chance to survive at birth due to very rare, complex congenital heart defects. She spent her first 4 months of life in their NICU where she coded at least thrice. The bills were insane for her first few years of life. The good news is i had exceptional insurance through my job, as did my wife. Now to maintain that insurance, I had to partake in some of the most disgusting, demanding labor I have endured(crawling through human waste, dead animals, tunneling under homes, bit, stung, attacked by any and all manner of creature) I got up happily each day and did it because that's what needed to be done.
Teresa is 21 years old now; a beautiful college student working on a degree in diagnostic sonography, and looks as though she is falling in love for the first time with a boy I am to meet later this week. She is a real joy in my life.
The point is, there is opportunity for plenty of able bodied folks, it may not be glamorous though. One of the problems is a lack of balance. We have able bodied folks not pulling their weight; add that to the poor souls who honestly can no longer pull their weight due to age or illness and the system is overtaxed.